On Tuesday evening, you notice on your statement that you are still paying for the gym you haven't set foot in since March.
To cancel, you have to find the right form, call a number that keeps you on hold, then send a letter. You put it off. Like last month.
Now imagine sending a simple text: "Cancel my gym membership." And the next day, it's done.
That is exactly what Instinct promises, a young American company that has just raised a billion dollars.
An assistant with its own phone
Most AIs you know answer you. You ask them for a restaurant, they give you a list. Then it's up to you to call.
Instinct does the opposite: it acts. It has its own phone number and its own computer. You text it, and it takes care of the rest: booking a trip or a table, ordering groceries, paying a bill, cancelling a subscription, booking the car in for a service.
When someone needs to be spoken to, it calls. A tier called Concierge handles the trickiest cases, the ones where you have to negotiate on the phone.
The company was founded by Noah Shinn in 2025. The service has been open since August, but by invitation only, and in the United States first. According to the trade site PYMNTS, it already had more than 100,000 users by mid-September.
Ten billion in a month
On 28 September, Instinct announced a billion-dollar raise from three of Silicon Valley's best-known funds: Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue. The company is now valued at 10 billion dollars.
In August, it was worth 2.5. Its value has therefore quadrupled in a month, before it is even open to everyone.
Why such a frenzy? Because investors see it as the next step for AI. Answering questions, everyone can do. Doing things on your behalf, in the real world, with your accounts and your bank card, is another matter. Whoever pulls it off becomes the middleman for your whole daily life.
Instinct is not alone, either. Meta is developing Muse, an assistant with similar features, with the advantage of drawing on the whole Meta ecosystem, from WhatsApp to Instagram.
1. A separate bank card with a low limit: if the agent gets it wrong, the damage is contained. Many online banks let you create one in two minutes.
2. A short list of accounts: the gym and the airline, not your work email.
3. Know how to cut it all off: before authorising, look for where access is revoked. If you can't find it, that's an answer in itself.
What you hand over
To cancel your membership, the agent must be able to log into your account. To book, it must be able to pay. To make appointments, it must know your calendar.
In other words, you are signing it a power of attorney. And PYMNTS pointed out on 21 September what that covers: users authorise the agent to read their accounts, keep copies of them, and buy or accept terms in their name.
Instinct's first privacy policy went so far that it was criticised, then changed. That is rather a good sign: the company backed down. But it shows the question is not theoretical.
At the bank, a power of attorney is signed, limited and revocable. An agent should work the same way. And if the agent messes up in your name, the question of who is responsible has no simple answer yet.
The day agents talk to each other
Instinct's latest feature may be the most striking. It is called the trusted person network: your agent can talk directly to a friend's agent to organise a dinner. You no longer swap ten messages to find a date. Your two assistants handle it.
Push the idea a little further. You send your agent to cancel your membership. On the other side, the gym has installed an agent too, tasked with keeping you. Two machines negotiate, and you get the result by text.
This is not science fiction. Business software is already preparing for a world where nobody clicks any more: some are even removing their buttons.
The caller who never hangs up
For twenty years, many customer services have been designed to wear you down. Endless menus, hold music, a form hidden at the bottom of a page. Every obstacle counted on one thing: that you would eventually give up.
Instinct is worth 10 billion because it bets on the opposite. Facing those obstacles, there will soon be someone who never gives up, never loses their temper, and has nothing else to do with their evening.
What remains is to decide who you give that role to, and with which keys.